REGINA -- The Saskatchewan government has extended the limit on private household gatherings to encompass the whole province.
Effective immediately, household bubbles will be restricted to immediate household members only.
The changes to the public health measures will also cap the number of people at worship gathering to 30, effective Friday.
"We had hoped to avoid reinstating these restrictions, but it's something we need to do for just a few more weeks until we can get some more people vaccinated," Minister of Health Paul Merriman said.
While cases may be low in some parts of the province, Merriman said the province-wide restrictions are necessary due to increased transmission.
The public health order limiting private indoor and worship gatherings was previously in effect in just the Regina zone.
"Even though our vaccination program is working successfully we still need to pay attention to COVID and our rising case numbers," Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province's Chief Medical Health Officer, said.
"While we have been focusing on Regina and the south of the province, we must now take further action to prevent transmission throughout the province,"
Shahab said the two situations the province is seeing the most transmission of the virus is within households and between members of a bubble.
"We do have to stick to our own household indoors and that's what worked well for us in December, and we really have to go back to that," Shahab said.
Merriman added that some transmission has been linked to gatherings over the Easter break.
According to the government, the measures will be reviewed on April 26.
